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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JSwanson who wrote (63935)	5/22/2002 11:26:07 AM
From: Return to Sender	Respond to of 70976

OT: Biotechnology/Drug Stocks I don't think now would be a good time to start investing in these stocks. Despite the weakness in the groups there may be more ahead. Yes the stock prices are lower but even so the insider buying has not been extremely high. Before the upturn into the bubble there was a great deal of insider buying. Biotechnology is very exciting. It offers not only new treatments but potential cures for devastating diseases but it takes a long time and a lot of money to develop a new drug. There is lots of competition and no guarantee of success through phase III testing. Even worse FDA approval is no longer a guarantee that the drug will sell well or be safe. Despite the need for curing cancer and genetic related disorders. It really is not in the best interest of major drug companies to develop cures anyway when they can make more money treating symptoms. If we are indeed heading towards an economic recovery then I would not expect drug stocks to outperform. They are much too defensive in nature. In the case of Biotech I would not expect them to outperform until much later in the recovery than the semiconductors for instance. Finally if I were to be a buyer it would be in the generic drug makers because they too have been selling off at a time when generic drug approvals have been coming fairly rapidly in my opinion. RtS